No conspiracy; it's all very simple

: To re-emphasize your point, sir, crew people like myself don't make the rules, we only follow them.

: "[T]he originator of this thread . . ." said that she wanted water in place of the soda, but I'm under the impression that she was willing to pay full price for the meal. There's nothing wrong with paying full price and asking for water in place of soda. If a McDonald's employee won't go along with that, the employee is not following the rules.

: This comes as no surprise to me. Being an employee, you assume the customer is wrong. You ignore the possibility that the customer could be right. As I've said in past threads, McDonald's employees rarely accept the fact that they're wrong. "The customer is always wrong" must be the motto of a McDonald's employee. It's McDonald's employees against the world from what I can see.

Morris: What in those lines led you to that conclusion? This was probably a new employee who didn't know the procedure for such a special request. In an industry that changes employees the way most of us change our socks, training and retraining is a constant. That subject just had'nt come up until that day.

: By the way, I ordered an item from McDonald's that I've purchased for years and years. I ordered it with cheese, as I always do. The cashier repeated my order, so I know she heard it. I asked the server if it had cheese, and she assured me that it did. After getting the order and going on my way, I found out that it didn't have cheese. I returned to get the all important cheese, and I was told that they couldn't put cheese on it. She said, "it doesn't come with cheese." It comes with cheese if I order it with cheese.

Morris: You're not as charming as you may think. The cashier already forgot about you and your special order. All she saw was the wrapper, and knew that those normally don't get cheese.

: Maybe they left off the cheese intentionally because they take pleasure in getting your order wrong after you've made every effort to make it clear to them exactly what your order is.

Morris: That is logically flawed. Am I going to get a tip if I get a good job? If I'm paid exactly the same whether I'm standing at a counter listening to a complaint or not, would I want a customer to come back and bend my ear? No way! "Here's your order... thank you... now let's get out of each others' lives!"

:Maybe they did something to the item when I had them put cheese on it. Nothing would surprise me.

Morris: Paranoid, eh? Contaminated food is too easy to prove in court, and carries a steeper punishment than anyone who works at McDonald's can easily afford to pay. The law is on your side here.

:I think they should turn all those cameras on the outside toward themselves, so there's a video record of what they do. They're just a bunch of kids on a playground disguised as a restaurant.

Morris: What are you afraid they are doing? Is someone supposed to sit in front of a black-and-white television and watch for some sort of infraction? I would love for a camera to be installed in the vicinity of the restroom, so that I may file an invasion of privacy lawsuit.

: If I were a business instructor, I would take my class to a local McDonald's for a great lesson in how not to treat customers.

Morris: First lesson... If you want it done right, do it yourself. Your employees are only in it for the money. When you pay a wage that says, "If I could possibly pay you less, I would", don't be surprised when the warm, fuzzy feelings you have for your customers disappear somewhere in the translation from your employees.